Friday 8 March 2013

Côte d’Ivoire: Even nature can’t disguise the past


Nature is growing back, making it look like nothing ever happened here.”

Those were the sad words of a tenacious local human rights defender as we drove past the ruins of the Nahibly displaced persons camp just outside the town of Duékoué in western Côte d’Ivoire.

The Nahibly Camp, which was home to about 5,000 people, was totally destroyed on July 20, 2012, in a massive attack by a mob estimated at 1,000, led by local Dozo militias and including members of the national army (FRCI).

At least 14 people – almost certainly more – were killed during the attack. Hundreds more were injured. Many more were rounded up and ‘disappeared’ as they fled the camp. Six bodies have since been found in a nearby well but many others are still missing.

We carried out extensive research in the area last September and heard harrowing stories of the ferocity and brutality of the attack. People were killed and injured by guns, machetes, axes, and clubs and by being burned alive. At that time, about eight weeks after the attack, the signs of the violence were still everywhere. Plastic sheeting, torn and burnt, still hung from wooden frames.

Charred and abandoned clothing and possessions were everywhere. I remember a haunting pair of flip-flops, lying along a pathway, one slightly ahead of the other, as if they had slipped from the feet of someone as they fled.

I wondered whether she or he had reached safety; or not. Touring through the site the clamour and terror of the attack still echoed.

Our local human rights colleague was right, though, five months later it has all faded away. In fact, driving past, if you did not know what had once been there, you would not even take notice.

The remnants of shelters and tents have been dismantled, likely carted away for firewood and other uses. And this area’s lush vegetation has certainly rebounded. What still looked like a scarred battlefield in September is abundant and green in March.

But the human rights defender wasn’t really talking about plants and bushes. What he was pointing out was that the very memory of the Nahibly attack is itself fading away. Like so many other serious human rights violations that have devastated the west of the country in recent years: time passes, there is no justice and impunity only deepens and grows over.

It is the same with respect to massacres in Duékoué’s Carrefour neighbourhood in which as many as 800 people may have been killed at the end of March 2011. On previous missions to the area we have paid quiet respects at a field which is a mass grave in which many of those killed have been buried.

In the past there was something raw and solemn about the site. This time it too was a jumble of grass and weeds and strewn with litter. Nothing solemn. No sign or plaque to mark the tragedy.

We spent time as well in the village of Diahiba, hearing from some of the survivors of a terrible attack here on March 28, 2011- the day before the Duékoué massacre – in which 48 people were killed.

One woman showed us the recently erected tombs in which her mother and younger brother are buried. Her aunt’s body is buried nearby. Two years on they still grieve and try to rebuild their lives; but wonder why there is no justice.

Time passes. Soon after the Nahibly attack, reports emerged, including from a survivor, that people who had been rounded up while fleeing the camp had been summarily executed and disposed of in a number of wells in the area.

It took two months for families and activists to convince the authorities to investigate one of the wells. Six bodies were recovered. At least three of them – two male and one female – were positively identified by family members on the basis of clothing and jewellery on the badly decomposed bodies which were then taken to Abidjan, more than 600 kilometres away, for autopsies.

Four months later the bodies have not been returned and autopsy results have not been shared.

Meanwhile, one intrepid local activist lowered himself by rope into some of the other nearby wells and was able to determine that there are more bodies to be found. Hard to say how many.

Out of fear that whoever is responsible for the killings might want to tamper with the wells, quite extraordinarily, a UN military and police contingent has been stationed in the area on a round-the-clock basis for the past four months.

But that is the extent of what has happened. Officials say that they are trying to figure out the best way to excavate the wells and determine what equipment and material is needed. Meanwhile families in the area still clamour for news of their loved ones.

And time passes. Nature grows over the sites at Nahibly and Carrefour. Corpses deteriorate in the water deep down the well holes. No sign of justice.

There was ironically much talk about justice while we were in the country because the pre-trial hearings in the case of former president Laurent Gbagbo at the International Criminal Court were wrapping up.

Of course there should be full accountability for any human rights violations for which his administration – and all parties to the conflict – are responsible.

Amnesty International documents are replete with the details. But it was striking to hear so much about justice on that side of the conflict and hear and see absolutely nothing on the other side; justice for the violations that forces aligned with the current government have committed.

All of this plays out against a backdrop of continuing insecurity. It is not just about the past. In the west, tensions remain high particularly in rural areas beyond the main towns and villages. Farmers are too fearful to return to fields in more remote areas; because they face threats and attacks from Dozo militia at barricades and on patrols.

Illegal, arbitrary arrest and detention continue to be a major problem in Abidjan and elsewhere. And the cases of former associates Laurent Gbagbo – including his wife Simone who we visited in the house where she has been imprisoned in a remote northwestern corner of the country awaiting trial for close to 18 months – languish and do not proceed. Justice is one-sided, yes, but even then it falls far short of international norms.

In the midst of this we launched a major new Amnesty International report at a well-attended and widely-reported national press conference, stemming from research last fall. The title, “The Victors’ Law,” captures concerns about one-sided justice at what is a critical juncture for Côte d’Ivoire.

This is the time of reconciliation and rebuilding. But unless the country begins to see accountability for all perpetrators of human rights violations and justice for all victims, insecurity will continue to undermine reconciliation.

Grass will grow over and well water will wash over the past. But the past will not be forgotten.

Grieving family members in Diahiba will not forget. Local human rights defenders will not forget. We spoke also with relatives of two of the men whose bodies were recovered from the first well hole. They will not forget.

And Amnesty will not forget. We will continue to stand with Ivorians in the struggle for justice for all.

Friday 8 March 2013

http://livewire.amnesty.org/2013/03/08/cote-divoire-even-nature-cant-disguise-the-past/

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Body of last missing worker found in Leyte landslide site


Retrieval teams finally ended yesterday their long hours of finding bodies of workers buried in a landslide that struck the geothermal complex of the Energy Development Corp. (EDC) here last week.

This, after the remains of one Jorden Salcedo – the 14th fatality and the last of those missing – were dug up yesterday morning. The previous day, the body of a certain Salvador Yabana was found.

Friday 8 March 2013

http://www.philstar.com/nation/2013/03/08/916957/body-last-missing-worker-found-leyte-landslide-site

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Medical Examiner Posting Online Pictures Of Unidentified Bodies


The Chicago area medical examiner’s office is posting photos of the dead on its website in hopes of identifying them.

The medical examiner currently has 32 unidentified bodies waiting for someone to give them a name and a proper burial.

The key to that closure is now available on the medical examiner’s website. It contains information about when the bodies were found and where, along with as much identifying information as possible, including in some cases a photo of the victim’s face.

The images are graphic, so the website has a warning page that pops up before the photos.

The images are also linked to “NAMUS”, a National Unidentified Persons Database, and that connection recently resulted in a Michigan family identifying their missing daughter.

Friday 8 March 2013

http://fox2now.com/2013/03/07/medical-examiner-posting-online-pictures-of-unclaimed-bodies/

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INTERPOL's meeting recommends improvements to FASTID


Participants from 13 member countries of the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL) recommended expanding the use of the organisation's bulletins and improving the FAST and the efficient international disaster victim IDentification (FASTID) Project which was launched in April 2010.

The recommendations were made at the two-day10th meeting of INTERPOL's consultative team on bulletins for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).

Through FASTID project, INTERPOL seeks to create the first ever police database to identify and link missing persons and unidentified bodies on an international level.

Participants also recommended publishing bulletins and information on wanted criminals on the organisation's website.

They also called for increasing the number of member countries in INTERPOL's consultative committee on bulletins.

Emmanuel Leclaire, Assistant Director of INTERPOL's Command and Coordination Center, who chaired the meeting, thanked the UAE for hosting the conference and praised its efforts to developing the INTERPOL's bulletins For his part, Major Mubarak Al Khaiili, Head of the INTERPOL's National Central Bureau in Abu Dhabi, thanked the participants for the efforts they made at the meeting.

Friday 8 March 2013

http://www.wam.org.ae/servlet/Satellite?c=WamLocEnews&cid=1290003561457&p=1135099400124&pagename=WAM%2FWamLocEnews%2FW-T-LEN-FullNews

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Coach crash in Cam Ranh leaves 11 dead


Eleven passengers died and more than 50 others were injured in a head-on collision between two buses in Cam Ranh City, central Khanh Hoa Province early this morning.

The accident occurred at 12:40 am in the city’s Cam Nghia Ward when a coach coming from the north slammed into one going in the opposite direction, said Senior Lieutenant Pham Van Cuong, deputy head of the provincial Traffic Police Department.

The north-south coach was operated by the Chin Nghia Company, while the other was owned by the Cuc Dung Company, Cuong said.

The head-on collision killed nine passengers instantly and injured 49 others, two of whom died on the way to the hospital.

The other injured victims are being treated at Cam Ranh City General Hospital and Cam Lam District General Hospital.

At 7:30 am the Cam Ranh City General Hospital said it had received 48 victims from the crash. At that time five recevied emergency surgery, while further operations were later conducted on more victims.

The hospital has mobilized 65 doctors and other health workers to help treat the large number of victims

At 7:40 am, the Cam Lam General Hospital reported that 11 people had been taken to the hospital, though one had died on the way.

At 8:10 am the Khanh Hoa General Hospital said its mortuary had received several bodies of dead passengers.

At 8:25 am, the Naval Zone 4 Hospital received 15 victims, three of whom are in critical condition.

A deputy director of the provincial Police Department arrived at the scene to direct rescue efforts and handle the aftermath.

Many other police units in the province have assisted the Cam Ranh police in responding to the terrible accident.

According to initial investigation, the accident was occurred while the coach coming from the north was speeding in the wrong lane, said Senior Lieutenant Colonel Dau Quang Tuyen, deputy head of the Cam Ranh City Police.

City authorities have given VND2 million (US$96) to each of the families of the dead victims, VND1 million to every seriously injured victim, and VND500,000 to every slightly injured victim as initial support.

Friday 8 March 2013

http://www.tuoitrenews.vn/cmlink/tuoitrenews/society/coach-crash-in-cam-ranh-leaves-11-dead-1.99734

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15 killed after vehicle falls into gorge in Indian-controlled Kashmir


At least 15 people including four children were killed and 22 others injured Friday after a vehicle carrying them skidded off the road and fell into a gorge in Indian-controlled Kashmir, police said.

The accident took place at 11:40 a.m. (local time) in Mandir Gala area of Rajouri district, around 140 km northwest of Jammu city, the winter capital of India-controlled Kashmir.

“In a deadly road accident today 15 people were killed and 22 others were injured, some of them seriously, when a bus carrying them fell into a 400-500 feet gorge in Mandir Gala Rajouri,” said a police spokesman posted at Police Control Room, Jammu. The injured were admitted to district hospital for treatment and bodies were retrieved from the mangled vehicle.

“Of the 22 injured passengers 12 seriously injured were air lifted to Jammu GMC hospital for specialized treatment,” a government spokesman said.

According to officials, the ill-fated vehicle was on its way from Kandi to Rajouri.The region’s Chief Minister Omar Abdullah and Governor N N Vohra have expressed grief over the loss of lives in the accident. The local government has announced a monetary relief of 1,841 U.S. dollars for every family that has lost member and 184 U.S. dollars for the every injured in the accident.

Deadly road accidents are common in this mountainous region often caused by overloading, bad condition of roads and reckless driving. India has the world's deadliest roads, with more than 110,000 people killed annually. Most crashes are blamed on reckless driving, poorly maintained roads and aging vehicles.

Friday 8 March 2013

http://www.nzweek.com/world/15-killed-after-vehicle-falls-into-gorge-in-indian-controlled-kashmir-53363/

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Two sailors of the USS Monitor identified after 150 years


The remains of two sailors who died more than 150 years ago when their Civil War-era ironclad ship, the USS Monitor, sank will be buried with full military honors Friday at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.



The skeletons of the two Monitor crew members were recovered in 2002 from the ship, which went down in stormy seas in 1862 off Cape Hatteras, N.C. For more than a decade, military forensic scientists have been trying to identify the Union sailors and find living relatives, work that will continue after the remains are buried.



An 1862 photo shows members of the Monitor's crew sitting on deck.

"The nation makes a promise to bring them home and tell their families what happened to them," said David Alberg, superintendent of the Monitor National Marine Sanctuary in Newport News, Va. "That promise is still good 150 years later."



Launched in January 1862, the Monitor, with its 9-foot-tall rotating turret made from 8-inch-thick iron, boasted the latest shipbuilding technology.


At the Battle of Hampton Roads in March 1862, the Monitor squared off with its rival, the CSS Virginia, a Confederate ironclad built on the frame of an old Union ship, the USS Merrimack.
It was the first battle between two ironclad ships.

The two exchanged fire over the Union blockade of Norfolk and Richmond. They fought to a draw and the blockade remained.

The remains are to be interred Friday at Arlington National Cemetery.

Later that year, the Monitor foundered on the open Atlantic in 17-foot waves, according to Mr. Alberg. It went down with a crew of 16 in an area off Cape Hatteras, an area known for rough seas.



"The Monitor is no more," wrote the ship's paymaster, William Keeler, who wasn't on the ship when it went down. "What the fire of the enemy failed to do, the elements have accomplished."



In the 1990s, divers from the Navy and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration began recovering portions of the ship, which sits in some 230 feet of water. 



In 2002, divers uncovered two sets of human remains in the ship's turret, which had broken off during the sinking. The turret had filled up with sediment, marine life and coal from the ship's bunkers, creating what experts say was an ideal environment for preserving the sailors' bones.



"I distinctly remember looking inside," said Joseph Hoyt, 31, a NOAA underwater archaeologist who took part in the dive. "They were intact," he said of the bodies, "and laid out the way you'd imagine a skeleton."



Once the remains were uncovered, the Navy stopped the excavation and hauled up the 200-ton turret still filled with sediment.



The bodies of the 14 other missing sailors haven't been found and are thought to have been lost during the sinking or destroyed by natural processes.



The turret was trucked to the Mariners' Museum in Newport News, where archaeologists began conservation efforts, beginning with the bodies. "They were so well preserved, they were still wearing shoes," Mr. Hoyt said. "One of them had a wedding ring he was still wearing."




The bodies subsequently were sent to the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command at Hickam Air Force Base in Hawaii, where forensic specialists identify human remains from any American conflict.
"There's no distinction whether this was someone killed in Afghanistan a month ago or someone killed in the Civil War," said Mr. Alberg.

Because the bones were so well preserved, the sailors' DNA could be extracted from the remaining tissue.



A number of people have come forward to take DNA tests in hopes of being identified as relatives of the sailors. No conclusive matches have been found although there are a few possibilities.

Andrew Bryan, a 52-year old elementary school principal in Holden, Maine, is one. He said his great, great uncle was William Bryan, a Scottish immigrant who sailed on the Monitor.
While trying to find information about his ancestor on genealogy websites, he received a message from someone associated with the POW/MIA program.



"The Navy saw that I had made a post about three years ago," Mr. Bryan said. Although his DNA tests were inconclusive, the results were close enough that Mr. Bryan will be attending the ceremony Friday as a possible relative. "From the moment I knew it was going to happen, I had to be there," he said.

The bodies will be unidentified when they are interred in Arlington National Cemetery's Section 46. 
"The remains will have a group marker, the same as if there are group remains from a helicopter crash," said Jennifer Lynch, a spokeswoman for the cemetery.



Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus and the head of NOAA, Kathryn Sullivan, plan to attend the ceremony, during which the Army's Old Guard will transport the remains on caissons to the gravesite. Friday is the 151st anniversary of the Battle of Hampton Roads.



"In the middle of a conflict about the way our society would define itself, here you had a tiny little ship with a crew that was a snapshot of what modern America would become," said Mr. Alberg. "An integrated crew—with immigrants, Jews, escaped slaves—all serving on this ship floating in the middle of this conflict."



Friday 8 March 2013

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323628804578346181040053980.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

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Canberra firefighter relives memories of the Japanese tsunami and earthquake


Oh my god. That was Canberra firefighter Bernie Evans's first reaction to the devastation of the Japanese earthquake when he got off the bus in the middle of the disaster zone. ''I'd never seen anything like it before,'' he said. ''I'll probably never see anything like it again.''

Evans, who joined what is now the ACT's Fire and Rescue Service in 1989, was no stranger to scenes of disaster and devastation.

A veteran of the Thredbo landslide in 1997, he said the big difference between that and Japan two years ago was the sheer immensity of the destruction. While Thredbo had been an extremely hazardous environment, and one in which rescuers needed to exercise great care, it was a very localised disaster.

In Japan, Evans and his fellow ACT Fire and Rescue urban search and rescue specialists were probing the ruins of an annihilated city of 17,000 people. A quirk of geography had funnelled the tsunami up a V-shaped valley, piling the water higher and higher until it was able to swamp three-storey buildings.

The other ACT members of the 76-strong team were Jeff Atkinson, Neil Maher and Ron Miller

Most of the private homes, usually lightly built of timber, were flattened by the force of the water. More substantial structures, including those designated as tsunami shelters, were inundated. The force of the water packed them full of debris.

The 2011 earthquake was the most powerful known earthquake ever to have hit Japan, and one of the five most powerful earthquakes in the world since modern record-keeping began in 1900.

''It is odd the things that stick in your mind,'' Evans said. ''I recall seeing a Mercedes sedan sitting on the roof of a three-storey building. It had been carried up there by the water but looked as if it had been deliberately placed on display.

''We found cars inside buildings, and on one occasion I opened a cupboard in a house I was searching to be confronted by a massive fish that was up on a shelf. How had it got inside? How did the door close? You have to wonder.''

Photographs he took at the time show houses piled on top of each other and even a large ferry sitting on top of what appears to be an apartment building.

One of the unintended consequences of Evans's deployment to Japan with the NSW Urban Search and Rescue Team was missing Nathan's 18th birthday. While he had heard about the catastrophe, like everybody else, on the news on the Friday he was not asked to deploy until the Saturday.

''There are protocols involved,'' Evans said. ''I had wondered if I was going to get the opportunity but knew that we had to wait until Australia was invited [to assist]. You can't just rock up.''

The deployment, the third urban search and rescue task force the NSW fire service had pulled together since the Christchurch earthquake the month before, took place just six days out from Nathan's 18th birthday. This had always been planned to be a big event and having dad there was to have been a major part of it.

''Missing that was the most difficult part,'' Evans said. ''I explained that this was something I had trained long and hard to do and that it was a chance to utilise my skills to help other people.'' He said the support of his family while he was away had been very important and that major efforts were made by the team's leaders to ensure those at home were kept up to date on what their loved ones were doing.

This was in keeping with the highly professional management of the Australian taskforce that resulted in very few injuries despite the dangers of the environment.

''At no time, even when there was all the talk about the radiation, did I feel at risk,'' Evans said. ''I understood the Australian government would have very good intelligence [on the situation] and that they would pull us out if they felt it had become unsafe to be there.''

The rescue team flew out of Richmond air force base on a C-17 to Tokyo after a stopover at Amberley to pick up a relief crew. They crossed into the northern hemisphere and, within hours, were in a Japanese winter.

For the 10 days of the deployment the team members slept in two-man tents. Temperatures got down to as low as -17 degrees. The ground alternated between frozen and muddy - or both.

The need for self-sufficiency, and the sheer devastation that had occurred, meant most meals were from ration packs. ''It was challenging,'' Evans said.

Within hours of the Australians' arrival it became apparent they were looking for bodies, not survivors. At their first briefing they were told their destination would be Minamisanriku, a fishing community of about 17,000 people.

''We were told that least 10,000 people were missing or dead,'' Evans said. ''It was a scene of absolute devastation; two years have passed and the missing are still missing.''

Many of the bodies had been swept out to sea as the tsunami receded after its march into the hinterland.

The Australians were instrumental in finding eight bodies, but, due to cultural sensitivities, the retrieval task was carried out by Japanese personnel.

''The Japanese people had done all they could,'' Evans said, ''to prepare for earthquakes and tsunamis but nobody could have ever imagined anything like this.''

Friday 8 March 2013

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/no-way-memories-will-fade-20130308-2frge.html

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3 bodies recovered in quake areas


The bodies of three people who appear to have died in the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami were recovered in Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures in the period from September to February, the National Police Agency said Thursday.

The three bodies were found in such places as a canal and the sea by local workers and fishermen. More than 2,600 people remain missing after the disaster. Police searches have continued in coastal areas and any locations requested by their families, but no bodies had been found since last April.

The number of unidentified bodies decreased to 132 after 89 were identified in the six-month period. More than 90 percent of recovered bodies have been identified through physical features, belongings and dental records. The use of police sketches based on the remains helped identify 22 bodies.

Meanwhile, the number of crimes recorded by police in the three prefectures in the year through February totaled 40,115, down 21.8 percent from the year to February 2011 before the disaster.

Friday 8 March 2013

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T130307004798.htm

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At Arizona’s border morgue, bodies keep coming despite drop in illegal traffic


The body of Ildefonso Martinez arrived on a Friday night last April as John Doe, Case No. 12-01000. He wore black Nike shoes, a Perry Ellis belt, jeans with a 34-inch waist, a Casio watch.

For medical examiners at the Pima County morgue, his was an unusual case. Not in how he died — making the same arduous journey that has claimed thousands of illegal immigrants — but rather because he was identified so quickly.

The death of migrants crossing the border has long been a tragic consequence of illegal immigration and, many say, the increase in U.S. border enforcement. For some, the problem is a powerful motivator in pushing Congress to act this year on immigration reform. But critics say proposals offered so far call for more enforcement with few specifics on how to save lives.

“The language coming out is alarmingly more of the same,” said Kat Rodriguez of Coalicion de Derechos Humanos in Tucson, who gathers information on missing migrants from family and friends to give to medical examiners trying to identify the dead.

Thousands more Border Patrol agents, hundreds of miles of fencing, and cameras, sensors and aircraft have made it more difficult to enter the U.S. illegally, prompting smugglers to guide migrants to remote deserts. People walk up to a week in debilitating heat, often with enough bottled water and canned tuna to last only days.

While illegal crossings have dropped dramatically in past years, hundreds of bodies are still found annually on the border. Border agents conduct more than 1,000 rescues each year, and humanitarian groups have placed water stations along the boundary in hope of helping.

In the last 15 years, at least 5,513 migrants have been found dead along the 1,954-mile border with Mexico, including 463 in fiscal year 2012, the Border Patrol reports.

The Tucson sector — which since 2001 has accounted for more migrant deaths than any other Border Patrol sector — located 177 bodies in the last fiscal year. Texas’ Rio Grande Valley saw the greatest jump in bodies found: 150 last year compared to 66 in 2011.

In that state, migrants cross the Rio Grande, catch a ride north and then hike for days on vast ranches in Brooks County to avoid a highway checkpoint. The county has no medical examiner and does not test DNA of deceased migrants, who are buried in unnamed graves at a cemetery in the town of Falfurrias.

The situation is similar to what Pima County authorities faced when Arizona became the busiest corridor for illegal crossings more than a decade ago.

“We had no idea this storm was on the horizon,” said Bruce Anderson, a forensic anthropologist in Tucson.

At the Pima County Forensic Science Center on The University of Arizona Medical Center campus, file cabinets hold dossiers on more than 700 unidentified corpses discovered since the late 1990s. Many bodies were too decomposed to identify. Others carried false identification or no identification.

Coolers for 262 corpses and refrigerated trucks on call with room for another 45 give the nation’s 30th-largest city one of the country’s largest morgues.

“Nobody has this problem. Nobody,” said Dr. Gregory Hess, Pima County medical examiner. His office rules on more than 2,000 deaths a year by murder, suicide and other causes, but migrants pose the biggest challenge because they so often cannot be identified.

Since 2001, the office has examined the bodies of 2,067 border crossers, the vast majority of them Mexican men. Men like Ildefonso Martinez.

Martinez, 39, was born and raised in a farming village in the central Mexican state of Sa
n Luis Potosi. After paying a smuggler some $200 to get him across the border, he settled in the San Diego area in the early 1990s and worked whatever odd jobs he could find.

Then last March, he agreed to watch the cash register at a friend’s convenience store. A sheriff’s deputy who required a signature on a regulatory notice turned suspicious when Martinez produced a Mexican consular identification card. The deputy called the Border Patrol, and Martinez was deported.

Left behind in California were his wife, Juana Garcia, and five children and stepchildren. Desperate to return to them, Martinez tried crossing three times in the mountains east of San Diego but was caught.

Then he decided to try his luck in Arizona. “It will be one night and one day, and we’ll be there,” Martinez told another crosser, Isaac Jimenez, whom he convinced to come with him.

Jimenez would later share with The Associated Press what happened during the two men’s journey north.

At 7 p.m. on Friday, April 20, he said, they crossed into the U.S. with 19 others at Lukeville, a border town 150 miles south of Phoenix. For 10 hours the group traipsed through the desert before resting in a cave. They had resumed their trek under a blazing sun for four more hours when Martinez collapsed.

“’I’m too young to die,’” Jimenez remembered him saying.

“Then he said he didn’t know who I was. He began to go crazy, to lose his memory,” Jimenez told the AP.

The smuggler insisted the group abandon Martinez, but Jimenez said he stayed, rubbing alcohol on his friend’s hot, swollen body and starting a small fire to draw attention. About two hours later, when Jimenez left in search of cellphone coverage, Martinez’s eyeballs were rolling and he had stopped talking.

What happened next is unclear. Jimenez said he dialed 911 after about three hours of walking and insists the Border Patrol agents who drove him back to Mexico assured him they would find his friend. The Border Patrol said in a statement that agents arrested Jimenez but that it had no record of him pleading on behalf of Martinez.

Five days later, after frantic phone calls from Martinez’s stepdaughter to U.S. and Mexican officials, Border Patrol agents met Jimenez at the Lukeville border crossing and he quickly led them to the body. Birds circled above.

At the Pima County Forensic Science Center, the cause of death was listed as probable hyperthermia. Typically, investigators measure bones and examine teeth to determine gender, date of death, age and other characteristics. If the skin is dried up, they may soak a hand in fluid called sodium hydroxide, rehydrating it to get fingerprints.

Relatives searching for missing loved ones are pressed for details. Any chipped or gold teeth? Tattoos or scars? Broken bones?

“It’s like a puzzle,” said Robin Reineke, a cultural anthropology graduate student at The University of Arizona who interviews families and feels comforted when her work helps ease their anguish. “I’ve talked with some of these families for five years. They’ve been waiting for that long for an answer.”

One in three migrant corpses remains unidentified, forcing investigators to send bone or blood samples out for DNA testing. Some bodies stay in coolers for more than a year.

Until the mid-2000s, unidentified remains were buried in Tucson. Now they are cremated to save money. Lockers at the center store the keepsakes of those who go unclaimed: a digital music player, $20 bills, paper with scribbled phone numbers.

With Martinez, investigators had a lot to go on: The personal belongings his family eventually would identify, including a business card for his dentist back in California. Examiners were able to obtain his dental records and make a positive match.

The Mexican government will pay to bring corpses home, but Martinez’s family scraped together $16,000 to bury him near their San Diego apartment, the living room walls lined with portraits of his mustachioed face.

“Here we go see him every weekend,” said stepdaughter Gladys Dominguez.

Juana, 43, speaks warmly of Jimenez for attempting to save her husband’s life. He settled in Fresno, Calif., after sneaking back across the border, and said he wanted the widow to know her husband’s last words.

“He did all that he could,” she said. Now she hopes that the U.S. government finds a way to do more to prevent such deaths.

“People like my husband need immigration reform,” she said. “There are lots of people like him.”

Martinez was buried last May, on Gladys’ 19th birthday. The gravestone bears a photo of him with Juana at their 2010 wedding and reads, “Juntos Por Siempre.” Together Forever.

Friday 8 March 2013

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/at-arizonas-border-morgue-bodies-keep-coming-despite-drop-in-illegal-traffic/2013/03/07/247de69c-8706-11e2-a80b-3edc779b676f_story.html

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